


If You Give a Student a Book

by yumetourou



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Bantering, College AU, M/M, fluff kinda, hwansung, librarian!jisung, music major!jaehwan, professor!minhyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 21:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15938399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yumetourou/pseuds/yumetourou
Summary: If you give a student a book, they’ll probably read it.However, in Jaehwan’s case...





	If You Give a Student a Book

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jjaeniel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjaeniel/gifts).



What Jaehwan least expected was his laptop to break down, especially right before a huge research essay. He poked at the black screen hoping for something— anything to happen. When the computer gave no response, he sighed and closed the lid, pinching his finger in the process. Nursing his now wounded pinky finger, he pulled out his phone to search for the nearest BestBuy, which was a 30-minute bus ride from campus. Glancing at the clock that read midnight (technically 12:02, but Jaehwan didn't care at this point), he shuddered at the mere thought of taking the bus alone at night for half an hour. Feeling defeated, he flopped down on the bed and fantasized that the sheets would absorb him so he didn't have to go to class the next day.  
Much to his disappointment, Jaehwan did indeed have to attend class the next day. Lucky for him, he only had afternoon classes. So here he was, on the cramped city transit bus, on his way to BestBuy. He was wedged in between a very sweaty man and a woman holding a baby smelling like toast and cigarette smoke. All in all, not how he wanted to spend his morning. Just when it felt like his lungs would close or he would vomit from a mixture of the heat and car sickness or both, the bus finally pulled up to his stop. He gladly removed himself from his uncomfortable position and stepped out into the cool outside world, taking in the fresh air. After a brief moment of walking face first into the automatic doors (he didn't see the out of order sign), Jaehwan confidently walked up to the customer service desk. He slid his laptop onto the surface and awkwardly waited for the employee to look up from her game of solitaire on her tablet. When she finally did, Jaehwan felt like curling up and dying because of the look she gave him.  
“ _What_ do you want?” she spat. Jaehwan stared at his shoes and inched closer to the counter.  
“I uh, I… my laptop broke.” Jaehwan didn’t think it was possible for the woman to glare harder at him, yet she did.  
“Broke _how_?”  
“I tried to turn it on last night and it wouldn’t turn on no matter what I did.” Jaehwan had forgotten how much he hated talking to customer service or anyone that he deemed vastly superior than himself in any way. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and waited for the employee to bark at him again. He heard the clattering of plastic and flinched, hoping she hadn’t broken his (old) laptop any further.  
“Your battery is dead.” Her voice was a tad softer than before, but her tone was still biting.  
“But I tried charging it-”  
“Not _that_ kind of dead. Dead as in it _won’t_ charge. We can fix it, but you’ll have to wait a week for the part to come in. It’ll also cost you about 86000 won.”  
“A week?!” Jaehwan felt his heart drop. His essay was due in 10 days. “But I have an essay due!” The woman shrugged at him.  
“Tough shit, but a week is the fastest we can do. Can I get your phone number and name so we can contact you when it’s ready?” Jaehwan went into autopilot as he scribbled ‘Kim Jaehwan’ followed by his phone number and email. Now he _really_ needed an extension.

* * *

  
“But-” Jaehwan whined to Professor Hwang after having his plea for an extension shut down twice already.  
“I told you, no extensions. I have to grade 500 papers already and I don’t want to have to keep track of yours coming in later.” Prof. Hwang was known for his coldness towards students throughout the university. Jaehwan was only experiencing this for the first time, but he was too entranced by the professor’s very handsome face.  
“It’s only a week though! Just until my laptop is fixed!”  
“Oh, your laptop is broken?” Hope glimmered in Jaehwan’s chest. “Then use the library.” Professor Hwang dropped some papers on his desk and left Jaehwan to stare and fume after his retreating back.

* * *

  
It’s not that Jaehwan _couldn’t_ read, he just wasn't _good_ at it, especially when it came to maps. He had been staring at the map trying to find the campus library for 20 minutes yet he only felt more lost and confused than before. Upon giving up on making sense of the complicated map, he decided to head in the general direction he thought the library was in. After an hour of desperation and almost crying on a park bench over how hopelessly lost he was, Jaehwan finally stumbled upon something that looked like a library. He pushed open the large wooden doors and was met with a blast of cold air conditioning. The last time Jaehwan had been in a library was in elementary school, where the shelves and him were almost the same height. Here, the shelves towered over him and almost reached the bottoms of the sills of the highest windows. One would need a ladder to reach the top shelves. Jaehwan dumbly stared up the height of the shelves before someone shoved past him followed by a muttered: “Don’t stop right in front of the door.” Shrugging, Jaehwan decided this was his best shot at getting his essay done.  
Now, Jaehwan may not be the best reader but he did know his alphabet. He scanned the shelves for the ‘T’ section (his essay was on a composer of his choice - he chose Tchaikovsky) and located it’s beginning at the bottom of one of the shelves. Crouching down, he began methodically running his finger along the spines of each book in search for anything about Tchaikovsky. Once his knees got sore from crouching for so long (five minutes), he sighed and sat back, still empty-handed. He blankly gazed at the row of books in front of him, desperately wishing they’d help him in any kind of way. As he was about to give up and leave for the day, a voice from behind him shocked him, making him lose his balance and fall backwards.  
“Can I help you with anything?” Jaehwan rocked forward on his feet and turned so he could stand up, but his movement was halted when the top of his head collided with someone’s face. He was sent reeling backward; clutching his head where it had been hit. When he pulled his hands away and opened his eyes, he noticed a faint streaking of red across them. _Blood?_ He looked up at his potential collision victim and his heart sank; a very cute boy was glaring at him with a very bloody nose. If not for the blood and glare, Jaehwan would describe him as exactly his type (even more so than Professor Hwang). Once his senses were regained, Jaehwan realized the weight of this unfortunate accident—he had given this poor librarian a bloody nose, potentially even a broken one.  
"Oh my god I- I’m so sorry.” Jaehwan rushed to use the sleeve of his sweater to help mop up some of the blood before the librarian roughly shoved his hand away.  
“It’s okay, I’ll be fine. Just a nosebleed.” Jaehwan was partially relieved but there was still the issue of giving a cute stranger a bloody nose in an act of extreme stupidity. “I’m Jisung, by the way. And you are?” Jaehwan tentatively stuck out his hand.  
“J-jaehwan.” Jisung disregarded his hand and Jaehwan shamefully retracted it.  
“So Jaehwan, what are you looking for? Or are you just going around and headbutting innocent librarians in the face?”  
“Hey! You got too close to me!” Jaehwan crossed his arms and turned away from Jisung before realizing he never actually answered his question. “I’m looking for books on Tchaikovsky,” he muttered toward the bookshelf, “I’m studying music theory.” Jisung laughed - though sarcastic - it was prettier than any piece of music Jaehwan had ever heard.  
“Well, you won’t find him here. Libraries are organized alphabetically by author, not subject. Come with me.” Jisung grabbed Jaehwan’s hand and led him in the direction of a computer monitor he hadn’t noticed before. Without speaking, he deftly searched something and was met with many results.  
“Here’s all the books we have on Tchaikovsky,” Jaehwan registered at least 20 on the list, “I’ll go get them for you. Wait at one of the tables.”  
“Wait, you d-” Before he could finish the sentence, Jisung had already walked away.  
After about 10 minutes of Jaehwan waiting awkwardly at a table by himself, Jisung approached with a rolling cart of books and tissue shoved up his nose. Jaehwan stifled a giggle, causing Jisung to look at him like he wanted to hit him over the head with the heaviest book. Jaehwan immediately silenced himself when he saw Jisung’s eyes.  
“You can laugh all you want but this is your fault,” Jisung deadpanned before sliding into the seat beside Jaehwan. “So Mr Music Theory, what do you need all these books for?”  
“Actually,” Jaehwan struggled to make eye contact, “I didn’t say I needed all of them. You just got them for me.” Jisung shrugged, as if to say, ‘Fair point.’ “And to answer your question, I need them for an essay which is due in 10 days.”  
“Well, it’s library policy that you can only take out 10 books per card, and you have about 22 in this stack. I recommend you start making some executive decisions on what you’re going to use.” Now it was Jaehwan’s turn to laugh sarcastically (Jisung would also describe it as music to his ears but you didn’t hear that from him).  
“I didn’t know how books were sorted, you think I have a library card?”  
“Well then unfortunately for me it looks like I have to deal with you everyday.” Jaehwan playfully glared at Jisung and scooted his chair over to grab a book from the pile Jisung had brought him. Within 15 minutes of note-taking, Jaehwan was asleep on Jisung’s shoulder.

* * *

  
After 10 days, all traces of Jaehwan had practically disappeared from the library. Jisung would be lying if he said he didn't miss him (even if his laughter was any librarian’s worst nightmare). It may have only been 10 days they spent together, but Jaehwan felt like a friend to Jisung. He guessed Jaehwan had only thought of him as a librarian there to help him, and nothing more. Admittedly, it hurt but Jisung expected it. As with most people, he wasn't anything more than a passing face.  
After a month of Jaehwan not showing up, Jisung accepted the inevitable: He would probably never see Jaehwan again. Apparently, his hurt was more visible than he thought - one of his coworkers pointed it out to him.  
“Jisung, what’s got you down?” Daniel asked. He was his friend of 14 years and only coworker he trusted. He never failed to notice when he was in a bad mood.  
“Nothing much, just a bad grade.”  
“Sure, that’s believable. Not like you’ve been acting this way ever since that boy you spent all your breaks with stopped coming. Face it Jisung, you like him.” Jisung couldn’t even defend himself against Daniel, he was the type to pull out a seven-paragraph essay with supporting arguments and cited sources just to prove a point to Jisung. Basically, he was an asshole about being right. He was also Jisung’s only friend, therefore he had to listen to him.  
It was the day before Jisung left for London to study abroad. It had been three months since he saw any signs of Jaehwan. He was currently spending his last 20-minute break sitting in the windowsill, watching the sunset before he locked up for the night. He had thought about writing Jaehwan a note if he were to ever show up at the library again, but decided against it. Every time he saw Jaehwan around campus, he shied away from actually speaking to him. He concluded that writing a note wouldn't go much better. As hard as it was, he just had to accept that Jaehwan was the one who got away. Daniel waved goodbye to Jisung as he left, wishing him luck in London and telling him to call whenever he could. Jisung absently waved back, still focused on the setting sun. As the clock ticked away the last few seconds until 9 pm, Jisung gathered his things and whispered his final goodbye to the library he had worked at for so many years. He swung the large wooden doors shut and patted them one last time, before turning around only to have someone collide with him.  
“What the hell are you doing here? The library’s closed.” Jisung couldn’t hide his annoyance at his assault in the dark. He felt warm blood drip onto his lips. _Great_ , he thought, _another nosebleed_ .  
“I know it is. I came to see you.” Jisung blinked in confusion. He recognized that voice. Once his eyes focused, his jaw dropped.  
“Jaehwan? I thought I would never see you again.”  
“Yeah, m- wait, why are you crying?” Jisung brought a hand up to his face and felt the tears he hadn’t noticed before.  
“I just said, I thought I’d never see you again.” He laughed at his own patheticness. “So, what brings you to see me? Here to break my heart after breaking my nose?”  
“God, no. I came to do this.” And then, Jaehwan was kissing him. Not what Jisung expected, but definitely better. Jaehwan broke away (too soon in Jisung’s opinion), and wiped the blood away with his sleeve. “You’ll be fine, just a nosebleed.” With that, he disappeared into the night. Jisung stared after him, debating whether to go after him or just tell him in the morning. In the distance, he heard Jaehwan shout.  
“By the way, see you in London!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about the rushed seeming ending... i tried i really did
> 
> catch me on twt @baejinist


End file.
